0 ISIS Smash Fake Sculptures in Mosul? Experts Say Many of Them Were Replicas

We might take some consolation from the possibility that some of the sculptures the militants smashed on video this week at the Nineveh Museum in Mosul, Iraq, were replicas, the destruction of replicas in this particular case may soften the blow.

"According to archaeologists, most if not all the statues in the Mosul museum are replicas not originals," reports Channel 4 News, London. “The reason they crumble so easily is that they're made of plaster. ‘You can see iron bars inside," pointed out Mark Altaweel of the Institute of Archaeology at University College, London, as we watched the video together. ‘The originals don't have iron bars.'"

“According to the British Institute," adds Channel 4, “the originals were taken to Baghdad for safekeeping. ISIS probably wouldn't care about the distinction. One false idol is the same as another."
All the same, reaction around the world has been swift and horrified (see The Metropolitan Museum and Others Respond to ISIS Destruction of Assyrian Sculptures). (news.artnet.com/art-world/did-isis-smash-fake-sculptures-in-)